Jackie Lays the Blame

So there I was, nursing my disappointments, holding on to them really tightly. And feeling tired and burned out and like it was all too hard. And I was doing really well, had my 'giving up' speech all prepared, the towel fully ready to be thrown in.

And then some wretched people decided to write me some lovely messages. Write some lovely supportive comments on this sorry excuse for a blog. Encouraging, horribly motivating messages. So imagine my surprise when I found myself deleting my 'giving up speech'. Picking up my towel. And more than, that, sitting down at my useless computer (it is useless, believe me, I hate the damn thing) and finishing the stupid story I've been slaving over for weeks.

You're all to blame. It's completely your fault. I would have given up. Truly.
But I'm afraid you guys talked me out of it. 

So if you're sick of my moanings, my general carrying on about the vile hardships of being an unpublished writer searching for that lucky ten percent, my complaints about my characters, my tearings of hair and sackcloth and ashes when I get a rejection, then that's too bad. You've got only yourselves to blame.

And when - if! - I ever get that magic Call, you can fully blame yourselves for that too. God knows I will. Because you guys are pretty much the only reason I'm still here.

Well, okay, perhaps not that only reason. :-)  I quite like writing too. And that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to keep writing because I love it. Because, basically, no matter what I decide, even when I'm languishing on the couch vowing and declaring that I'll Never Write Again,  my brain decides to churn out another couple of story ideas. And if those couple of stories happen to turn up on editors desks then hey, nothing to do with me. I'm only writing because I like writing. Nothing to do with being published. Nothing at all. (okay, so it's a nice idea but I fear the execution may be harder than it looks).

Anyway, that's me. I'll be writing though perhaps not subbing. Still unpublished. But still here.

The Ten Percent

This was meant to be a fabulous motivational post for but since this week has been disappointing writing-wise, I've kind of lost any motivational type attitude. Not that I had much to start with.

This year has been a hell of a year. Lots of very, very hard stuff to deal with. Lots of hard work put in. Don't get me wrong, I've learned a lot and the few successes I've had have been wonderful. But the sad fact is that there aren't enough successes to balance out all the crap.

It all comes down to that ten percent. If getting published is 30% talent, 30% hard work, 30% persistence, then that last 10% is luck. And you might have all the above but if you don't strike that last 10% you may as well not bother. Now, I don't think I'm a bad writer. I have some lovely contest successes as testament to the fact that people like what I write. And also lovely comments on the chapters I've written for New Voices. I know people would like to read what I write. This year I've also put in a lot of hard work to make my stories better. Learning craft has been difficult for me, applying it even harder. But I think I've made progress. And I've been pretty persistent. I've written over 10 books in the past couple of years - some twice!

But no one will get to read them if you don't get the 10%. Luck. The right editor, the right story, the right time. Some people hit it straight away. Some people don't. Guess which group I fit into? I don't set out to write bad stories. Every time I write a story I'm wanting to blow someone's socks off. But sadly, for me, the socks have stayed firmly on. I just haven't hit that 10% yet. And the sad truth of the matter is this:  I may NEVER hit it. Because that's the beauty of luck.  

At the moment, I feel like I'm going into a casino and playing the slots. I have had a few wins to keep me going - small returns to give the illusion you're succeeding - but no jackpot. Sometimes I don't get any in a row. Sometimes three. Once, I had four. Yet I keep missing out. And I'm getting to the bottom of the change in my cup. I could go get some more of course, but my bank account is on zero. I'm a gambling addict, betting what little confidence I have in my writing on a change in luck that may never happen.

Okay, so it might change. You never know. You might give up right before it happens for you! Well, I can safely say that is not the case now. It will not be happening for me in the near future. So I could actually give up now, safe in the knowledge that for the next year at least, I wouldn't have missed out on anything.

And you know what? I just don't know if I can do another year. My change cup is empty and so is my bank account. I've written books I was so confident in I was all but writing out my sale story, only to end in rejection. I've written books that I thought would never get anywhere that have won contests. So now I can't tell what's good anymore and what isn't. My instinct has gone. The vacuum of being unpublished has sucked it all away.

I've always been an emotional girl. Up and down, that's me. Writing just makes the downs more intense because I actually care too much about this thing. And as for the ups...well, there haven't been many. I wish I could detach myself. I wish I had a hard skin and could shrug off the downs. Maybe if I'd built up to it I would have. But I started off really well so that when the downs came, my skin wasn't thick enough to cope. Still isn't.

Anyway, this is a long-winded way of saying that at the end of the year, I'm going to have to sit down and reconsider whether I want to continue doing this. True, I haven't been doing this as long as many and if you've been doing this for years, I salute you.You are incredible people and I wish I had your staying power. But I'm not sure I do. I'm not sure I can keep gambling on the ten percent.

I was so hoping that my journey would end happily. That I would have a sale story to tell. But life doesn't happen that way. No matter how much we want something, no matter how much we think we deserve it, it doesn't mean we'll get it. Sometimes - unfortunately - there is no HEA.

In Which Jackie Waves a Big Stick

It's always the way. You come back from holiday and life kind of descends on you like the 1000 tonne ACME weight descends on the coyote from Roadrunner. Actually, I shouldn't complain (though I am, obviously), because spending four days down in Queenstown, in a beautiful hotel, isn't something to complain about. It's just the coming back that sucks. Especially when motivation to write is thin on the ground.

It's not that I'm not liking my story. I am. I'm loving writing it. I'm just having a 'what's the freaking point?' moment. The moment all unpublished authors get when there is no prospect of your story being accepted today, or tommorrow, or even at any point in the near future. When, in all probability, it will be rejected just like all the rest of your submissions. When no one cares if you finish it or not because you have no deadlines. No slavering readers desperate for your next title. You have no one except your CPs (if you have CPS) and though you love them dearly some days even they are not enough. 

Depressing.



So, any of you having the same problem as me? Are you feeling like there's no point finishing your story? Because if you are, if you need some motivation, if you need Jackie to wave a big stick and tell you to get off your butt and finish the damn book, let me know. Give me a deadline. And I'll write a blog post expressly designed to make you get those words down.

Why? Because I care. Because I want you to finish your book. I want you to edit it. I want you to submit it. Because after all, I am you. And if you don't, why the hell should I? :-)

The Joy of Rewrites

It should come as no surprise to any of you that my approach to writing is rather emotional (I approach the rest of life rather emotionally as well, not just writing but that's an entirely different story).
So when something is wrong with a story, EVERYTHING else is wrong too. The kids are a nuisance, the husband is a git, the house is a tip. Life itself becomes one giant pain.
But, on the other side of the coin, when the story is going right, EVERYTHING else is just fabulous. The kids are well behaved, the husband is a doll, the house is spotless. Nothing is a problem.

Anyway, as you can imagine from my last couple of posts, I have encompassed the full emotional spectrum due to my wretched stories and I'm sure my family would now like to lock me away if only for a bit of peace and quiet.

However, I'm sure they'll be relieved to know that - for the moment - I'm okay. Because I've just spent the entire weekend rewriting the beginning of the story that gave me such a wonderful 'aha' moment about the heroine. I knew it needed to be done because although the beginning I had was okay - my CPs liked it - I still felt funny about it. Couldn't put my finger on why. Couldn't really even articulate the specific problem. Perhaps there was too much setup. Too much going  on. Too busy. Whatever it was, I just had a funny feeling about it (cue the 'I hate the rest of my life too' moans).

Now, when it comes to rewriting, there are two schools of thought (or possibly more but I can't think of any others right now). You either don't need to rewrite as much as you think. Or you should rewrite entirely. Although the former can be very attractive after you've spent months crafting the perfect ms, the latter, for me at least, can be exactly what you need.

Maisey Yates gave me the best advice - rewriting entirely can help you break out of the cage you've written yourself into. It's hard but it feels like you're starting over and that can give you a lot of freedom. It was certainly the best thing for this particular ms. I rewrote chapters 2 and 3 completely. Different things happened.  They didn't go out, they stayed in. The kiss I had happening at the end of chapter 3 didn't occur. It was like writing a whole new reality for them. But the best thing was allowing myself the freedom to let the characters be who they were, not me trying to impose what I thought they should do on them (which, I figure, was the problem with the original iteration) or what was good for the plot I had planned.

Anyway, the sum total of this is that now, having rewritten, I no longer have that funny feeling about the beginning. It's not perfect and it may not be at all what the editors want. But it feels more true to the characters than the earlier one. In fact, it's a beginning I'm not sure I could rewrite again since what I've already got is IT.

In Chez Ashenden, all is now right with the world. At least until I run into the next story problem. :-)

So, when you run into a writing problem, what do you do? Pull your hair? Scream at the kids? Throw the computer through the window? Or rewrite?

Crash

It was inevitable. What goes up must, at some stage, go down. Yeah, the drug that was the character high has now worn off. Big time. Everything is as it was - crap. Oh, not entire crap because I still have had that great character revelation and I still feel good about it. I just need to rewrite the rest of the story. Completely.

So. Awesome.

I guess that's the 'wonderful' thing about writing. One minute you cannot believe the power of your fantastic brain. The next you cannot believe the power of your own ability to convince yourself anything you write is actually good.

And it doesn't help that - for the unpublisheds among us - we are essentially writing in a vacuum. Oh, we have critique partners and other people to read our work and give feedback but once we send that baby away, we're looking at months and months of waiting without any clue about whether we headed down the right track or whether once again, we've been gullible about what we've been writing.

We have no reason to keep going in other words. No reason to keep writing. Certainly no reason to keep rewriting. With no deadlines, no rabid fans clamouring to read your next book, nothing to keep you motivated, it's extremely hard to think of reasons why you should even finish the book you're currently writing (cos no one will EVER read it right??).

Sometimes loving writing just isn't enough.

So how do you keep yourself going when you're in the vacuum?  When you're doing nothing but waiting? When you're not sure if the stories you're writing are complete crap or genius? How do you keep the faith?
Any tips gratefully received!

Epic Moments - The Joys of Pantsing

Do you ever have moments when the scene you're writing suddenly becomes epic? When you know absolutely that THIS scene is a pivotal moment in your book? A scene that totally makes the rest of the story? A scene that is so powerful that you just know you're gonna have to rewrite the rest of the book because you didn't really understand the conflict of either character until that point?  

Well, I had a moment like that over the weekend. There I was, writing a love scene, and it suddenly began to evolve in a way I hadn't really considered before. An incredibly powerful way. It became a scene where conflict, character and romance all met and melded together perfectly. Where the love scene and the way it happened became so absolutely pivotal that if you took it out of the story, if had happened in another way, there would be no HEA (yeah, I know, ALL love scenes are supposed to do that but we won't go there). I don't think I've ever written a scene quite like it. And you know what? When I was writing it I thought 'man, this scene could sell the book'.

Now some of the plotters among you may be thinking, 'Jackie, seriously? You did not not see this coming??' And the answer to that is no, I did not. I guess it's a pantser thing. I mean, I knew the characters conflict before I started but I did not know the details and I did not know 'how' the characters would help each other resolve it. It's like breeding two distinct species of animal then putting them in a cage together and standing back to see what happens. 

Anyway, I gotta tell you, it's a rush. It's the kind of moment I live for when I write, and I haven't had too many of those lately. Especially good seeing as how the rest of the story has been a b*tch to write. It kind of made all the crap I was writing beforehand all worthwhile just to get to this particular scene. I may not sell the book of course but if not, it still would have been worth the experience of writing it just for this scene alone. Because if I can do it once, I can do it again. 

So, does this ever happen to you? Have you written scenes you can't believe you actually wrote? Or had a scene turn out so differently from what you expected that you're left sitting dumbstruck by the awesome brilliance of your own brain?? :-)